Suicide Linked to Anthrax Case: Mystery Solved?

Posted by Digby, Hullabaloo at 7:39 AM on August 1, 2008.

Apparent suicide in anthrax case

A top government scientist who helped the FBI analyze samples from the 2001 anthrax attacks has died in Maryland from an apparent suicide, just as the Justice Department was about to file criminal charges against him for the attacks, the Los Angeles Times has learned.

Bruce E. Ivins, 62, who for the last 18 years worked at the government's elite biodefense research laboratories at Ft. Detrick, Md., had been informed of his impending prosecution, said people familiar with Ivins, his suspicious death and the FBI investigation.

[...]

Ivins, employed as a civilian at Ft. Detrick, earlier had attracted the attention of Army officials because of anthrax contaminations that Ivins failed to report for five months. In sworn oral and written statements to an Army investigator, Ivins said that he had erred by keeping the episodes secret -- from December 2001 to late April 2002. He said he had swabbed and bleached more than 20 areas that he suspected were contaminated by a sloppy lab technician.

"In retrospect, although my concern for biosafety was honest and my desire to refrain from crying 'Wolf!' . . . was sincere, I should have notified my supervisor ahead of time of my worries about a possible breach in biocontainment," Ivins told the Army. "I thought that quietly and diligently cleaning the dirty desk area would both eliminate any possible [anthrax] contamination as well as prevent unintended anxiety at the institute."

The Army chose not to discipline Ivins regarding his failure to report the contamination. Officials said that penalizing Ivins might discourage other employees from voluntarily reporting accidental spills of "hot" agents.

But Ivins' recollections should have raised serious questions about his veracity and his intentions, according to some of those familiar with the investigation. For instance, although Ivins said that he swabbed areas near and within his personal office, and bleached surfaces to kill any spores, and that some of the swabs tested positive, he was vague about what should have been an essential next step:

Reswabbing to check whether any spores remained.

"I honestly do not recall if follow-up swabs were taken of the area," Ivins said. "I may have done so, but I do not now remember reswabbing."

"That's bull----," said one former senior USAMRIID official. "If there's contamination, you always reswab. And you would remember doing it."

The former official told The Times that Ivins might have hedged regarding reswabbing out of fear that investigators would find more of the spores inside or near his office.

[...]

The eldest of his two brothers, Thomas Ivins, said he was not surprised by the events that have unfolded.

"He buckled under the pressure from the federal government," Thomas Ivins said, adding that FBI agents came to Ohio last year to question him about his brother.

"I was questioned by the feds, and I sung like a canary" about Bruce Ivins' personality and tendencies, Thomas Ivins said.

"He had in his mind that he was omnipotent."

Ivins' widow declined to be interviewed when reached Thursday at her home in Frederick. The couple raised twins, now 24.

The family's home is 198 miles -- about a 3 1/2 -hour drive -- from a mailbox in Princeton, N.J., where anthrax spores were found by investigators.

All of the recovered anthrax letters were postmarked in that vicinity.

The man was mentally ill, at least recently. He'd just been hospitalized for depression. But the story is maddeningly short on any details about possible motivation, making you wonder if it's another poor schnook who's been hounded by the government into an early grave or if he knew he was about to get caught and decided to take matters into his own hands.

The words of the brother are especially intriguing, but we have no way of knowing what they meant. The anthrax scare was one of the most bizarre episodes of the immediate 9/11 environment and seemed to have political intent, being sent exclusively to Democrats and members of the media. If this was the guy, hopefully we will hear the whole story.

The FBI went way wrong with Stephen Hatfill and the government just had to pay out nearly six million dollars in damages to compensate him for it. If this guy was in their sites for years and they failed to see it, we should know the reason why. It occurs to me that the FBI seems to have a blind spot when it comes to these domestic terrorism cases. They botched the Olympic bombing too and originally accused the wrong man. They did it again with this anthrax case. Why is that?

Tagged as: domestic terrorism, anthrax attacks

Digby is the proprietor of Hullabaloo.